Management

Jay Reilly of SoundBite Communications provides 5 tips to shape the customer experience in an evolving, multi-channel world.

Skill levels in the contact centre can vary considerably and product knowledge can often be poor.  With the internet and social media we sometimes find that the customer is more knowledgeable than the agent they are talking to.
So how do we encourage a learning culture in the contact centre?  Sarah Mackie provides some pointers.

As leaders of people, one of the most disliked elements of our roles is that of disciplinary action.
Angelo Azar gives his top tips for dealing with performance management.

Breaks are an essential part of the daily routine in a call centre, but scheduling them can cause a headache for management. Matthew Brown looks at successful methods to overcome lunch and tea break planning chaos.

Are your scripts switching off your customers?
Scripts can be an easy way to ensure agents say the right thing at the right time. But they could also be switching your customers off. If your scripts are guilty of any of the seven deadly sins below, it could be time for a rewrite.

Agents find the option to swap shifts very useful, but for businesses, it can cause all sorts of trouble. Shift swaps can leave a call centre understaffed and unable to perform to targets, if organised badly. Matthew Brown looks at the trials and tribulations of swift swaps in the call centre.

While eliminating customer annoyances may not double your client base overnight, it will help to secure your customers’ confidence in your abilities as a reliable, efficient service provider.
The following are the ten annoyances most likely to prevent your customers from returning to you for future business.
Avoid them like the plague.

Customer compliment often reflects great service from a whole team. Good feedback is useless unless shared with a team. Even good feedback for individual agents can give others an insight into the level of service they should be aiming to give.
Here are a few suggestions on how to share feedback with the rest of the [...]

Have you got a team that is underperforming?  Is poor teamwork producing lower results?
Are there frustrations that inhibit individuals’ effectiveness?
Martin Marris highlights some top tips that could help to make your team more than simply the sum of the parts.  

Carolyn Blunt looks back at her career and identifies how we can all become better leaders.
It was 1998.  A typical day for me in my role as team leader.  I leave the office every night, my head in a spin after a day of heavy fire-fighting but without any feeling of real accomplishment.  I try [...]